Page 22 of In the Bones
“A lot more.” Nicole felt a hiccup rising in her throat andswallowed it down. She hadn’t eaten a thing since that morning, before leaving her house for Mikko’s, and the wine she was pounding felt extra potent. It had started to give everything a halo. Nicole willed herself to focus. “Mikko bought the house last summer, right?”
“Just before Labor Day.”
“And when did the reno work start?”
“March, I think.”
“Why the delay?”
“I guess the contractor was busy,” Stacy said with a one-shouldered shrug. “I connect him with a lot of new owners, so I think he’s pretty backed up. Mikko didn’t mind waiting, though. He wasn’t planning to spend time in the house till summer anyway.”
“Hear me out,” said Nicole, an idea struggling to take shape in her mind. “What if that was all part of some big master plan? What if Mikkowantedthe house to be empty, so he could stash a body in there and nobody would know? And they wouldn’t have,” Nicole went on, “except that he happened to become the target of a serial trespasser who’s really good at hide and seek.”
Stacy gave a long, slow sigh. “Let’s focus on what we know. Mikko Helle has issues. I spotted them on our very first house tour. The guy’s a certified narcissist.”
“Agreed.” Five minutes with the man had told Nicole the same thing.
“Well, narcissists like to believe they can get away with anything. It’s an entitlement thing.”
“You’re right,” she told Stacy. “I’m sure you’re right.” Why hadn’t she realized it sooner? Mikko was skilled at manipulation. No wonder Woody had let himself be fooled.
“Look,” Stacy went on, leaning in close, “I’m not saying he did this. The police will sort that out. But it’s a damn good thing you got out of there before it got dangerous.”
Nicole nodded. The action made her feel woozy, and for an alarming moment she thought she might fall off her stool. She’d gotten out of the house, yes. But there was no way she could walk away from Mikko.
Wealth and status. Those things were a fundamental part of Woody’s life, at once his obsession and his kryptonite. It was something Nicole had always brushed off as inevitable, a hazard of living in a place popularized by aristocrats and industrialists who’d built a literal “Millionaire’s Row.” Many of those lavish homes sat empty for most of the year, while Woody and Nicole barely scraped by. That was the way of things, though. The haves, and the have-nots. There was nothing to do but accept it. That’s how Nicole felt, anyway.
Woody disagreed.
Woody had always wanted more. He fought against the tide, plunging his arms through the water again and again, even as waves crashed over his head. Thesummer people. He needed them, had built a business that couldn’t exist without their idle hours, kids, and cash. But Woody loathed them, too.
It used to bother Nicole that he’d disparage customers in front of the girls, cracking jokes about their Tommy Bahama shirts and extra-large wine slushies. And then, one day, he’d come home singing a different tune.His name’s Mikko Helle. He’s a retired pro hockey player—the NHL, Nic, the real fucking deal. He’s moving up here, and he’s loaded. He made me the most amazing offer.
There had been a time when Nicole had believed in her husband, when she wouldn’t have questioned his decisions, even one as big as this. The sense of ease she’d enjoyed with him for twenty-three years had shriveled and died last summer.
If Woody hadn’t cheated …
If Woody hadn’t handed over their savings to a man he didn’t even know …
Nicole used to let herself wallow in those “ifs.” Not anymore.
Something else about grief was that it could slow time, dragging out each second so you felt like you were neck-deep in a weed-choked lagoon. It could clutch your tongue and coat it with silt, black and bitter, and it had Nicole in its grasp. There was nobody within arm’s reach who could save her.
And that had left her with no option but to save herself.
TWENTY
Tim
From across the room, Tim watched Nicole Durham through the crowd. On Saturday nights The Brig was packed, regardless of the season, and that had allowed his group to go unnoticed when they settled into a back booth, sloughed off their jackets, and ordered their drinks.
Nicole and the woman she was with, whose short ash-blonde hair and full lips called to mind a black-and-white print of James Dean, were deep in conversation, heads bowed toward each other as they spoke. In the time that he’d been paying attention, the woman had fended off three separate advances from men in favor of focusing on Nicole. After what Nicole had been through, Tim felt grateful that she had a friend to lean on. The investigators who’d just finished grilling her were the last people she’d want to see tonight.
“So,” Valerie said, sipping from the short straw that protruded from her whisky sour. “It’s between Jenny Smith, who burgled four houses before pulling a Richard Kimble, and a former NHL star who swears he doesn’t know there was a body in his own fucking basement. Care to place your bets?”
Tim barked out a laugh and shook his head. They had a long way to go with this case, which made him think of Valerie’s daughter. Bobby Ott, who was thirteen, triggered the same feelings of guilt he experienced when he left Darcy behind each morning. Most of the time, work–life balance was doable. Tim, Shana, Jeremy Solomon and Val weren’t inner-city officers working sixteen-hour shifts, responding to brutal domestic violence calls and processing an endless string of arrests. Normally, they could all make it home with time enough to cook dinner and decompress. Bobby was old enough that she probably understood. But Valerie was largely raising her alone,her ex downstate in Verona, and this case was Valerie’s second homicide since joining the troop. A second high-pressure marathon investigation. Tim had been worried she might rethink her decision to come north, yet here she was, taking bets on an utterly wild selection of suspects, her gallows humor as healthy as ever.
Valerie had been a very good addition to the team.
